The desert doesn't remember names.It forgets them faster than the wind forgets footsteps.And yet, in the heart of the endless dunes, there stood a village that refused to be forgotten.
Draedun.
A cluster of worn stone homes, a single broken well, and a shrine carved into the skeleton of an ancient beast—this was all that remained. A village that the world had moved on from. No gods blessed it. No maps marked it. Only those born into it remembered it, and even they struggled to believe it was real.
On the edge of this village, with the dawn bleeding softly over the horizon, the Traveler stood in silence.
His coat, still stained with ash from the night before, fluttered weakly in the breeze. In his hand, he held a worn scrap of cloth—a child's drawing. A silver orb glowed faintly in the folds of his coat, warming his chest.
He watched the villagers emerge from their homes like ghosts shaking off sleep. The Hollowborn attack had shaken them, but they were alive. That was more than most places could say these days.
He took a slow breath.The air tasted of dust and sorrow.
"Are you really leaving?"
The voice belonged to the girl from the night before—the one who had called him thunder.
She stood barefoot again, arms crossed, the orb still clutched in her tiny hands. She looked at him not with fear or awe… but with annoyance.
The Traveler tilted his head. "Would you prefer I stayed?"
She puffed her cheeks. "You gave me this," she said, lifting the glowing sphere. "It's warm. It feels… safe."
"It's meant to."
"But you gave it to me and now you're leaving?" she scowled. "That's not what heroes do."
"I'm not a hero."
"But you killed the monsters."
He turned his gaze to the horizon. "I've killed many things. That doesn't make me a hero. It only means I've survived."
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "Are you cursed?"
The Traveler chuckled softly. "Perhaps."
She looked at the orb again. "Does this mean something?"
"It reacts to what's inside you," he said. "Hope. Memory. Light. Whatever is still pure."
"…Will it protect me?"
He finally turned to her, his eyes sharp but strangely gentle.
"Only if you protect it too."
She didn't fully understand. But she nodded. As if accepting a task older than her years.
The wind stirred again. This time carrying a scent—the faintest trace of something metallic, ancient… and broken.
The Traveler's smile faded.
He looked to the far horizon.
A shimmer in the distance. Not heat. Something else. A ripple. As if the air was breathing. As if something was watching.
"I have to go," he said.
She looked sad, but nodded. "Will you find what you're looking for?"
"I don't know what I'm looking for."
He adjusted his coat, turned, and began to walk.
The girl raised her voice. "Will I see you again?"
He paused. A long silence stretched out. Then:
"When the world ends… or begins again."
And then he was gone—swallowed by the sands once more.
Somewhere far away...
In a throne made of rusted machinery and bone, a figure stirred.
Its body was draped in shifting shadows. Its eyes burned with unnatural light. It had no mouth, yet it whispered through the dreams of men.
"He moves again…"
A servant bowed low—half-human, half-machine—its skin carved with marks of worship.
"Shall we pursue?"
The figure raised a hand.
"Not yet. Let him walk. Let the world remember him… before we erase it again